Her World
by Timeloopy
Summary: Erika lives in a world that's been turned upside down by the Visitors arrival. . .but sometimes in her dreams she touches a world that was almost as strange. In other words - Erika and Juliet are sort of the same person in alternate realities
1. Chapter 1

The message played on the answering machine.

"Just wanted to let you know I'm okay. Don't have time to talk now. Tell Tyler I love him."

Erika glanced around to make sure Tyler didn't see then slapped the answering machine off the counter and watched it fly into a million pieces as it struck the floor. As if she cared if he was okay. How did he know they were okay? She knew he'd moved on. A new life. A new family.

And he left it to her to explain it all to their son which left their son hating her and blaming her for the whole horrible mess.

She knelt and began to pick up the pieces of the answering machine. Reached for the trash bin and pulled it closer so she could dump the shiny black plastic pieces and metal parts into it one by one. At least she had her work. She was capable and confident there. She knew who she could count on and that was more than she could say about her personal life.

"If I can't have you, I wish I'd never met you," she said the phrase over and over in her dreams sometimes – never knowing what it meant. Never knowing who she was talking to. Always the words and then a bright white light.

Then she'd wake up to face this world. Her world. With the estranged ex-husband and the son who seemed to hate her when she loved him more than life itself.

And now with these visitors.

There was another dream she had sometimes.

"We're building a runway for the aliens," she'd say and someone would laugh. And it made her feel good to hear that laugh.

But that was another world and another lifetime. Because in this world – her world – the aliens were real.


	2. Chapter 2

The message on the computer screen struck terror into Erica's heart as a mother. She felt like Eli in the Bible – realizing that while she was trying to save the world she was losing her own son. He'd gone to the mothership – surely it was just some role playing game – like when she'd dated that guy in high school who played Dungeons and Dragons. It was a phase right? I mean, that guy was a mechanical engineer or something now with four kids and a dog.

He was just a normal teenage boy, she told herself. He had a girlfriend – at least she supposed the half naked girl in his room had been his girlfriend. It occurred to her that he'd tried to talk to her about that – tried to tell her about the girl but she hadn't taken time to listen. She could barely even remember now what had seemed more important at the time.

She realized she was still standing in his room with her hand on the mouse. With an effort, she walked out of the room until she could think straight. If she was honest with herself, she hadn't ruled out violating his privacy to find out exactly how deep his involvement was with the Vs. But, she needed to think.

When had she lost touch with her son? Was it the day his father had handed him that damn motorcycle after she'd expressly forbidden it? Or was it further back, the day his father had told her she had a choice to make – the job or him – and the FBI had picked that exact moment to call? Tyler had walked in just as she'd answered the phone and his father had picked up his leather jacket and stormed out the door in disgust.

A part of her brain that couldn't deal with the insanity disconnected. She poured a glass of wine and allowed herself to imagine that the ex was a V. Wouldn't that be a tremendous vindication? She could hand him over to Georgie and have the man who'd broken her heart exposed for all the world to see. The problem with the fantasy was that the heart breaking had been mutual and it hadn't happened all at once. It had happened over time until what they'd once had was so scarred and bruised as to be unrecognizable.

Time. Another concept that she always had trouble with somehow.

She settled into the sofa facing the door to wait for her son's return. They needed to talk – really talk – it couldn't be too late. Tyler was almost eighteen so she needed to appeal to reason – maybe even tell him what she knew about the Vs. After a few more glasses of wine, she was sure she knew what to say. As soon as he came home.

The phone rang. Without thinking, she answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey gorgeous." The voice on the other end was slightly slurred as though he'd had a few glasses of wine too. Or more likely beer.

"What do you want, James?" she said wearily.

"Sorry, to interrupt whatever you were doing." His voice had a bite to it. "I'm sure it's immensely more important than talking to me. But then, it always was. And I'm fine incidentally – how are you?"

Erica took a deep breath. It was four years too late for that fight. Four years and a million mistakes too late.

"I'm okay. I'm. . ."

There was no static on the line. It was perfectly clear even though she knew he was halfway round the world.

"You still there, Blondie," his voice held a note of concern.

"Promise me you won't try to swoop in and save us, James."

Another pause, she could almost see his brow wrinkle.

"I don't believe in saving people that don't need saving, Erica. Do you actually need saving?"

"No. I. No, it's Tyler."

"Is he okay? Damn it, Erica. That's why I called. He usually calls me every couple of days and I haven't heard from him in weeks – not since the damn aliens hit the skies. What's happened to our son?"

Erica wished she hadn't had quite so many glasses of wine. In another lifetime, she'd have known just what to say to him but in this lifetime – in this world – she didn't even remember which end was up. In this lifetime, she felt lost.

"What do you think of the aliens?" she asked.

"What?"

"The Vs. What do you think of them?"

"I think that our son is a helluva lot more important than the supposedly peace loving hippy aliens. Erica. If you don't shoot straight with me, I'm coming out there to find out what's going on."

"Do you trust them?"

"Why are you asking me this, Blondie?"

She winced at the old nickname. It harkened back to a happier time and worse, it reminded her of the dreams that had made them think they had a chance to begin with. But dreams hadn't been enough to hold their crumbling marriage together.

"Erica? You still there."

"Do you trust the Vs, James?"

He heaved a sigh on the other end of the phone. She could see him running his hand through his hair in frustration.

"No, as a matter of fact, I don't trust the damn aliens. And this better have something to do with our son."

And then, it all crashed in around her and she let out a kind of half-sob that was a mixture of the wine and her frayed nerves and her failings as a mother and maybe even a little bit for the marriage that was long over. It was completely unlike her and she swallowed it back, but not before he heard.

"Just tell me. You try to take care of the whole world all by yourself and nobody can do that. Just tell me what's wrong."

"And you'll fix it?" she asked shakily.

"No. I never thought I could fix the world, baby. That was you. You save the world and I just try to survive it."

Somehow, the dam burst then.

"Tyler's mixed up with the V's and he lied about it and he wrecked his motorcycle and I came home yesterday and there was this half-naked girl in his room and he's almost eighteen and I think he's going to move out and my partner was a V and I thought he had my back but I killed him and Tyler won't talk to me anymore and I don't know what to do."

It all came out in a mad rush.

She tried to breathe – regretted almost immediately that she'd opened up to him of all people. He'd left her and remarried while she'd been alone ever since.

"You alright?" he asked.

"I don't know what I am just now."

"If you can get him to call me, I'll try to talk to him. You said you didn't want me to come back there or I'd come see him. Did you say there was a half-naked girl in his room?"

"Yeah," she said weakly.

"Was she hot?" he asked with a grin in his voice.

Erica tried not to chuckle. "She was a pretty girl."

"Is she mixed up with the Vs, too?"

"I don't know, why?"

"Because, a pretty girl can talk you into things you'd never do otherwise. Maybe that's all it is."

"You think?"

"I hope. Like I said before, I don't trust them. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. You know you can call me any time." The offer at the end was a little too nonchalant.

"Your wife wouldn't like that much," she said trying to play it off lightly.

"Not married any more."

"What happened?"

"She thinks I'm hung up on my ex-wife. Crazy, huh?"

Erica's mind flew back to one of the recurring dreams. 'You looked at her.' The woman in the dream wasn't her – it didn't even feel like her – for all her faults, she'd never been the jealous type.

"So you and Kate aren't together any more, then."

"Nope. She ran off with some doctor. For what it's worth, those two just love the damn Vs."

Erica smiled for the first time that night.

"I'm going to talk to Tyler when he gets home. I'll let you know how it goes."

"Hey Blondie?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell him, if he doesn't call his old man I'm stopping the payments on the damn bike."

"That's a stroke of genius."

"Yeah, well, I'll talk to him. Not that there's a whole lot we can do – like you said, he'll be eighteen before you know it – we've probably already done enough damage. You keep me posted. I do care what happens to him. He's really all I've got."

"I'll keep you in the loop. I should go. Goodbye, James."

"Bye, gorgeous. Oh yeah, Erica – did you really kill one of those alien bastards?"

"Yeah, I really did."

"Good," he said and then he disconnected.

As she hung up the phone, she wondered, not for the first time, whether they should have tried harder to put things right. And then, for the very first time since the divorce, she wondered if it was too late to try.

***

Three days later, she walked into her apartment and found an envelope on the counter. It was from Phuket, Thailand. Tyler had signed for it, but hadn't opened it. She suspected he was making a point.

The talk had not gone well at all. It had quickly degenerated into her teenage son yelling about her invasion of his privacy and her ranting about his irresponsibility and how dangerous the Vs were without citing any specific examples. She'd picked the worst possible time to throw in the bit about his father wanting to speak with him which had resulted in Tyler accusing her of calling his father to tattle on him.

She'd spoken to James only once since and he'd been much more sober and consequently a lot cooler to her. His talk had gone about as well as hers had only it had been shorter, since Tyler had simply disconnected the call when he had enough of the lecture.

The thick envelope was a definite surprise since the only person she knew in Phuket was her estranged ex.

She opened it and pulled out a sheaf of photographs. There was no note which was, quite frankly, typical of her photo-journalist ex-husband. However, it took a moment for her to realize what story exactly these pictures were telling. She had looked at about a dozen of them in bewilderment when she landed on one that made her go back and watch the scene unfold.

A sticky note was attached to the very last picture.

'Show him, if you think it will help.'


End file.
